Africa Wo/Man Palava

The Nigerian Novel by Women

Africa Wo/Man Palava offers the first close look at eight Nigerian women writers and proposes a new vernacular theory based on their work. Flora Nwapa, Adaora Lily Ulasi, Buchi Emecheta, Funmilayo Fakunle, Ifeoma Okoye, Zaynab Alkali, Eno Obong, and Simi Bedford are the writers Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi considers. African womanism, an emerging model of female discourse, is at the heart of their writing. In their work, female resistance shifts from the idea of palava, or trouble, to a focus on consensus, compromise, and cooperation; it tackles sexism, totalitarianism, and ethnic prejudice. Such inclusiveness, Ogunyemi shows, stems from an emphasis on motherhood, acknowledging that everyone is a mother’s child, capable of creating palava and generating a compromise.

Ogunyemi uses the novels to trace a Nigerian women’s literary tradition that reflects an ideology centered on children and community. Of prime importance is the paradoxical Mammywata figure, the independent, childless mother, who serves as a basis for the new woman in these novels. Ogunyemi tracks this figure through many permutations, from matriarch to exile to woman writer, her multiple personalities reflecting competing loyalties—to self and other, children and nation. Such fragmented personalities characterize the postcolonial condition in their writing. Mapping geographies of pain and endurance, the work opens a space for addressing the palava between different groups of people. Valuable as the first sustained critical study of a substantial but little known body of literature, this book also counters the shortcomings of prevailing "masculinist" theories of black literature in a powerful narrative of the Nigerian world.

Foreword by Catharine R. StimpsonAcknowledgmentsFiring Can(n)ons: Salvos by African Women Writers 1: An Excursion into Woman’s (S)(p)ace The Myths of Osun and Odu: Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Secrets of Verbal Authority The Mammywata Myth as Gendered Insurance Chi/Ori, or, The Mother Within Omunwa/Iyalode, or, The Mother Without, or, The Daughter-of-the-Soil The Ogbanje/Abiku Complex: Mother as Jinxed Care Giver A Taste of Women in Nigeria: The Sweet Mother, The Bitter Wife, The Sour Widow, The Salt of the Earth 2: (En)gender(ing) Discourse: Palaver-Palava and African Womanism Palavering: Bones of Contention African Womanist Ideology 3: Flora Nwapa: Genesis and Matrix Strategies in the Palaver Uhamiri and the Secrets of the Ugwuta Homestead Efuru: In Search of the Mother Twice-Told Tales: Idu Revisited Never Again: The War to End All Wars One Is Enough: Bitter Wife, Sweet Mother Women Are Different: Stasis Nwapa’s Political Acuity: "A Woman Protects a Man"—Silently 4: Adaora Lily Ulasi: Juju Fiction The Magic of Confusion: A Long (Overdue) Introduction Many Thing You No Understand: The Curse of Ignorance Many Thing Begin for Change: For Better, For Worse The Night Harry Died: Resurrection and the Arts of Divination Who Is Jonah?: From the Belly of the Fish The Man from Sagamu: Divine Mediation "Ise," Say I—To That Prayer of Ulasi’s 5: Buchi Emecheta: The Been-to (Bintu) Novel The Been-to (Dis)Advantage In the Ditch: But Conditions Are looking Up Second-Class Citizen: First-Rate Woman The Bride Price: What Price Freedom? The Slave Girl: Slave Traffickers and Vernacular Ethics The Joys of Motherhood and the Throes of Fatherhood Destination Biafra: Humpty-Dumpty and Daughters-of-the-Soil Double Yoke: Double Yolk and Yokefellows The Family: Uncovered Secrets Kehinde: Bintu and the Search for a Home 6: Fakunle, Okoye, Alkali, Eno Obong, Bedford: Siddon Look Sweet Mothers: The Present Generation Funmilayo Fakunle: Opening the Secrets in the Calabash Ifeoma Okoye: Maladies, Malaise, and National Recovery Zaynab Alkali: Salts and Preservation Eno Obong: Mammywata to the Rescue Simi Bedford: Home as Exile and Exile as Home Holding Fire: For Home and Country

Works Cited Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://www.press.uchicago.edu